


for instance, this sort of fairy tale

by giacomo



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Closeted Character, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/F, High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4508505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giacomo/pseuds/giacomo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maki hates fairy tales. Kotori helps her change her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for instance, this sort of fairy tale

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to AO3 user cheinsaw for beta-ing this for me ;w;  
> i want to write more of these two if people would be interested!!

“Being a first year is so annoying,” Maki grimaced, folding her arms over her chest.

  
Rain beat hard against the club room window. Honoka and Rin had whined about it, but they had all eventually decided to cancel practice. Only Maki and Kotori stayed behind – Maki, to finish the last touches of the composition for their Cultural Festival song, and Kotori, to do likewise for their costumes. Maki glanced at the shimmery white cloth laid out over Kotori’s lap, and her delicate fingers leading the thread smoothly through it.

  
The truth was, she had finished the composition the night before, but she liked watching Kotori work. There was something enchanting about her graceful movements.

  
 “Really? I had so much fun last year, though…” Kotori smiled sympathetically back at Maki, but she looked a little concerned.

  
“Last year for the Cultural Festival, though, your class did a café, right?”

  
Kotori beamed. “Yeah! We all wore really cute dresses and served people different types of tea and snacks. It was a lot of fun!”

  
Maki sighed. “I thought our class could just do a café this year, but my classmates said we should do something more original. I guess a bunch of girls are in the drama club, and now they want us to do a class play.”

  
“Ehhh? That sounds like it’d be great, though!” Kotori stopped her sewing a moment, considering, and her face fell. “Although, if you do a class play, it’d be hard for you to rehearse with Muse as well…”

  
“Right? That’s why I definitely don’t want to.”

  
“Hmm… That is tough…” Kotori’s eyebrows knit into the perfect portrait of concern. Maki’s eyes lingered on her face, although Kotori didn’t seem to notice.

  
Whatever Kotori was feeling, it was always written plainly on her face. Maki wished she knew how to be that honest. She looked back at her composition pages and felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t been honest about that, and she wasn’t being honest now either.

  
It wasn’t that the play would get in the way of rehearsing with Muse. Maki knew she could fit in time to practice for both if she had to. She just never wanted to do a play for a cultural festival again. Flashbacks of junior high played in her mind, back when she went to a mixed school. She remembered the boy who had played the prince finding her after the performance, gripping her wrist with his clammy hand.

  
“Maki, you’re a real princess to me. Please go out with me.”

  
She remembered shaking him off, but not before people had seen. Rumors breathed their way around school. “Maki, do you _like_ him?” _No. Leave me alone._ “Then which boy do you like?” _I don’t like…_

  
“What play would you be doing?” Kotori’s sing-song voice broke Maki out of her reverie.

  
“They want to do Sleeping Beauty. And they want me to play her! They said I’m the most ‘princess like.’ What’s that even mean? I think they should pick Rin – she’s always sleeping in class anyway.”

  
 Kotori giggled. “But Maki, your name is really great, huh? ‘True princess…’” She looked up thoughtfully, tracing the characters in the name on the palm of her hand. “You’re really the most princess-like in Muse, too! I’m a little jealous~”

  
Maki’s face darkened. “So? What’s so great about princesses?” Kotori’s smile immediately disappeared, and her eyebrows furrowed. Maki flushed a bright pink, flustered by Kotori’s sudden distraught expression.

  
“What? They just sit around looking pretty and waiting, don’t they? Just waiting for some prince to find and marry them. It’s stupid. I hate that kind of fairy tale,” she blurted. Her eyes slowly fell to her feet. “I’ve always hated those stories.”

  
Kotori tilted her head to one side, frowning. “Hmmm… I had never even thought about it like that.” The smile again blossomed on her face. “But you know, that’s not really the _princess_ which is bad, is it? That’s just a boring story. But Maki… If it’s you, I’m sure you could come up with a much better one. Right?”

  
“Eh?” Maki could feel her face reddening again. “N-Not really! I’m not good with writing -- and anyway, that’s Umi’s thing.”

  
“But you’re so good at it too, Maki! Whenever I hear the tunes that you write, I feel like, ‘wow… it’s an adventure…’” Kotori’s voice was light and airy. It made the sudden weight of her hand grabbing Maki’s all the more startling. She pulled Maki towards her, her eyes sparkling as she spoke. “Your music is a story too!”

  
Maki jerked her hand away instinctively. “Don’t touch me!”

  
Seeming to remember herself, Kotori quickly drew back, hunching her shoulders down. “Ah, s-sorry… I got too carried away…”

  
They both went silent, the only sounds coming from the light rustle of Kotori’s sewing needle. The air felt heavy somehow, much too heavy for Maki to reach her hand over and take Kotori’s again. It was too much to explain. It was too troublesome, anyway. It would be too hard with the strange knot she felt in her throat.

  
Instead she stared at her fists in her lap, gradually unclenching them. She felt her throat relaxing, and finally found her voice again. “What if… she wasn’t waiting for a prince, or anybody?”

  
“Hm?” Kotori looked up.

  
“The princess – or the story, I guess. What if, instead of waiting, she went out looking? For some other princesses like her. Or even one other princess like her. Who isn’t waiting for princes.”

  
“Oooh, that would be great! Then there’d be even more princesses in the story. What would she do when she found them?”

  
“Uh… Hm. Maybe she’s cursed, and the other princesses can break the spell. And then she would be free.” For some reason, Maki felt dizzy, like she telling something much more personal than some silly story.

  
“A curse really makes it feel like a fairy tale! What would the princesses do next? When they’re free.”

  
Maki grimaced. “I don’t know… I told you, I’m no good at stories, anyway.”

  
To her surprise, Kotori just smiled. “Maybe when they’re free, they write music. And sew dresses.” Maki looked at the beautiful costume in Kotori’s hands. She had finished sewing the lace on and was just adding the last few ribbons. It really looked fit for a princess.

  
“Yeah. Maybe they do that,” Maki mumbled, the slightest smile playing over her lips.

  
“And ride alpacas into the sunset!” Kotori threw her hands, a determined grin on her face. Maki couldn’t help herself, and burst out laughing.

  
“Kotori, I like your fairy tales.”


End file.
